For One More Day

“Every family is a ghost story . . .”

Mitch Albom mesmerized readers around the world with his number one New York Times bestsellers, The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Tuesdays with Morrie. Now he returns with a beautiful, haunting novel about the family we love and the chances we miss.

For One More Day is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that covers a lifetime and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one?

As a child, Charley “Chick” Benetto was told by his father, “You can be a mama’s boy or a daddy’s boy, but you can’t be both.” So he chooses his father, only to see the man disappear when Charley is on the verge of adolescence.

Decades later, Charley is a broken man. His life has been crumbled by alcohol and regret. He loses his job. He leaves his family. He hits bottom after discovering his only daughter has shut him out of her wedding. And he decides to take his own life.

He makes a midnight ride to his small hometown, with plans to do himself in. But upon failing even to do that, he staggers back to his old house, only to make an astonishing discovery. His mother -- who died eight years earlier -- is still living there, and welcomes him home as if nothing ever happened.

Albom has said his relationship with his own mother was largely behind the story of the book, and that several incidents in “For One More Day” are actual events from his childhood.

Critical Praise

"For One More Day is a quick, slick read, full of literary jewels and lines that go down like a sip of water. The mythical, magical world that lives behind Mitch Albom's eyes, where you can go back and fix what was wrong, where it doesn't hurt to dole out forgiveness, where a mother walks the earth like an angel paying homage to our one true treasure -- our families -- is a place I wish I lived. If you had the chance, just one chance, to go back and fix what you did wrong in life, would you take it? And if you did, would you be big enough to stand it? Mitch Albom, in this new book, once again demonstrates why he is one of my favorite writers: a fearless explorer of the wishful and magical, he is also a devout believer in the power of love. For One More Day will make you smile. It will make you wistful. It will make you blink back tears of nostalgia. But most of all, it will make you believe in the eternal power of a mother's love."

—James McBride, author of The Color of Water

“Think of Mitch Albom as the Babe Ruth of popular literature, hitting the ball out of the park every time he’s at bat.”

–Andrea Sachs, TIME

‘Mitch Albom sees the magical in the ordinary, giving character Chick Benetto the opportunity of having one more day to go back and share a moment in his life with his mother’

—Cecilia Ahern, bestselling author of P.S. I Love You

“ Mitch Albom returns with a new novel in which death is a tender presence. The hero, after a missed attempted suicide, falls upon his mother who died eight years before. It is an encounter full of love and warmth that eases his torment and erase some regrets. “You need to keep people close,” Albom writes, “You need to give them access to your heart.” Hurry to For One More Day: it is a tender memorial that escapes sentimentality. It is rare.”